New AIDS Stem Cell Treatment Proving Stem Cells Really Help AIDS – Video

New AIDS Stem Cell Treatment Proving Stem Cells Really Help AIDS
youtu.be Whether differentiated or undifferentiated, sheep stem cells or rabbit; frozen or fresh, stem cell therapies are showing real promise and helping HIV-AIDS sufferers around the world, today! For information to help you make an informed, personal decision, check out StemCell-Asia.info today.From:John PepperViews:2 0ratingsTime:01:06More inNonprofits Activism

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New AIDS Stem Cell Treatment Proving Stem Cells Really Help AIDS - Video

FAQ-4 19- What Chance Stem Cells Will Help Me After Stem Cell Treatment? – Video

FAQ-4 19- What Chance Stem Cells Will Help Me After Stem Cell Treatment?
youtu.be As differentiated or undifferentiated, whether from sheep stem cells or from rabbit; delivered frozen or fresh, today #39;s stem cell therapies are showing real promise and helping HIV-AIDS sufferers around the world, today! Cautious not to claim they can cure ANYTHING, today #39;s ethical clinics offer hope for AIDS-HIV sufferers worldwide, although the one Thai clinic licensed by the German stem cell technique is in Bangkok. For information to help you make an informed, personal decision, check out StemCell-Asia.info today.From:Kerry DeanViews:1 0ratingsTime:01:38More inPeople Blogs

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FAQ-4 19- What Chance Stem Cells Will Help Me After Stem Cell Treatment? - Video

4 Year Stem Cell Update! – Video

4 Year Stem Cell Update!
FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY ... I had my first stem cell treatment that changed my life forever, changed my life for the better. My hopes and dreams were awakened. My drive and determination to not let MS ever win was recharged. iWillAlwaysLoveMyNewStemCells! THE FUTURE OF STEM CELLS IS NOW! http://www.iLoveMyNewStemCells.com http://www.facebook.com/HollyHuber http://www.twitter.com/StemCellSuccessFrom:Holly HuberViews:5 7ratingsTime:04:33More inPeople Blogs

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4 Year Stem Cell Update! - Video

ACT’s European Clinical Trial Advances to First Patient Treatment with Higher Dosage of Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived …

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT; OTCBB: ACTC), a leader in the field of regenerative medicine, today announced treatment of the fourth patient, the first in the second patient cohort, in its European clinical trial for Stargardts Macular Dystrophy (SMD). The patient was injected with 100,000 human embryonic stem cell-derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells, as compared with 50,000 cells in the three patients comprising the first cohort. The outpatient transplantation surgery was performed successfully and the patient is recovering uneventfully.

Our progress continues in our European clinical trial and both our trials in the U.S., as seen most recently with last weeks announcement of treatment of the second patient in the second patient cohort of our U.S. trial for SMD, said Gary Rabin, chairman and CEO of ACT. As I mentioned last week, we have mapped out the series of patients to complete the second cohort of both our trials for SMD, as well as for our trial for dry age-related macular degeneration (dry AMD), pending DSMB review, and we anticipate generating patient data at a faster pace.

Initiated in January of this year, the Phase I/II trial is designed to determine the safety and tolerability of hESC-derived RPE cells following sub-retinal transplantation in patients with SMD at 12 months, the studys primary endpoint. It will involve a total of 12 patients, with cohorts of three patients each in an ascending dosage format. The company is concurrently conducting another trial for SMD and one for dry AMD, both in the U.S.

We are very gratified to be initiating the first treatment of the second patient cohort in our European clinical trial, having just started it this year, commented Robert Lanza, M.D., ACTs chief scientific officer. Our two U.S. trials also continue to move steadily forward.

Further information about patient eligibility for ACTs SMD study and the concurrent studies in the U.S. and Europe (for dry age-related macular degeneration and SMD, respectively) are available at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov, with the following Identifiers: NCT01469832 (E.U. SMD), NCT01345006 (U.S. SMD), and NCT01344993 (dry AMD).

About Stargardts Disease

Stargardts disease or Stargardts Macular Dystrophy is a genetic disease that causes progressive vision loss, usually starting in children between 10 to 20 years of age. Eventually, blindness results from photoreceptor loss associated with degeneration in the pigmented layer of the retina, called the retinal pigment epithelium, which is the site of damage that the company believes the hESC-derived RPE may be able to target for repair after administration.

About Advanced Cell Technology, Inc.

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. is a biotechnology company applying cellular technology in the field of regenerative medicine. For more information, visit http://www.advancedcell.com.

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ACT’s European Clinical Trial Advances to First Patient Treatment with Higher Dosage of Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived ...

Medical Council okays 11 stem-cell studies

Home national Medical Council okays 11 stem-cell studies

Health

Chularat Saengpassa, Pongphon Sarnsamak The Nation October 23, 2012 7:38 pm

But the council has approved only 11 studies, which will include research into the most common diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, retina irregularities and the spinal chord, Dr Somsak Lohlekha, who chairs the council's stem-cell research regulatory panel, said.

Separately, the council has been asked to certify two other studies related to heart disease as standard treatment, but it has put them on hold due to opposition from Thailand's Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Surgeons.

"These two medical colleges found that patients with heart disease did not feel any better after getting stem-cell injections," Somsak said.

Moreover, stem-cell treatment for heart disease had yet to be accepted by the international medical community as standard treatment.

"We found that many patients spent more than a million baht for this treatment and their condition did not improve," he said.

Of the 11 stem-cell studies approved by the council, one is being conducted at the Police General Hospital. The research team, led by Pol.Mai.Gen Dr Thana Turajane, has succeeded in developing adult stem cells derived from blood that can develop into cartilage tissue and be used to treat arthritis. It can also be used to culture a new set of stem cells.

Thana and his team had to wait more than nine months for a go-ahead from the Medical Council. In their application, they included a report on animal trials done by a Malaysian university to show that the use of stem cells was safe.

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Medical Council okays 11 stem-cell studies

Houston company ceases supplying stem cells

Under fire from the Food and Drug Administration, the Houston-area company that facilitated Gov. Rick Perry's controversial 2011 stem-cell treatment has stopped providing doctors with the cells patients banked at its facility for the procedure.

In a response to an FDA warning that it is acting illegally by marketing the unlicensed therapy, Celltex Therapeutics Corp. wrote the federal agency this week that it has ceased enrolling patients in the clinical trials the state requires of stem-cell providers. Celltex was the Houston area's primary sponsor of such for-profit trials.

"We're telling potential patients that we will still bank their stem cells and will enroll them in trials once new investigational drug applications have been submitted and reviewed by the FDA," said Amdrea Ferrenz, Celltex's executive vice president and legal counsel. "We hope that will be in a matter of months."

Ferrenz called the FDA warning letter, publicly posted Tuesday, "a disappointment" but said it actually just moves up Celltex's plan to move into agency-approved trials targeting specific disease conditions. The Sugar Land company had been operating for nearly 18 months facilitating adult stem-cell procedures with little regulation.

The Texas Medical Board in July began requiring that any stem-cell procedure be reviewed for patient safety by a board expert at such evaluations. The board used by Celltex, Texas Applied Biomedical Services, last month received an FDA warning letter of its own, informing it the agency will withhold approval of all its reviews because of problems with the review board's operations, such as members with conflicts of interest.

FDA warning letters are considered big deals in drug regulation, the federal agency's principal means of achieving compliance. They include language that failure to take corrective action can result in company seizure or shutdown.

It is unclear if the FDA letters to Celltex and the review board will have an effect on the new medical board rules, meant to regulate the experimental therapy in the absence of oversight from the FDA. A medical board spokeswoman said this week that the board could reopen the matter at its November meeting.

Leigh Turner, a University of Minnesota bioethicist who writes frequently about stem-cell tourism and in February complained to the FDA that Celltex is "a potential danger to patients" and not in compliance with federal law, said he thinks it's "highly unlikely" that Celltex could quickly meet FDA requirements for research trials. He said Celltex would need to make a dramatic reconfiguration considering all the deficiencies an FDA inspection found in April.

Those included numerous basic manufacturing problems, all reiterated in the warning letter. Ferrenz said Celltex is eager to meet with FDA officials to learn what they still want to know beyond the "tons of information" the company has already sent.

Celltex had argued stem-cell injections are like bone marrow transplants and not subject to the FDA's jurisdiction. But in its warning letter, the FDA said Celltex's processing "alters the original relevant characteristics" of the cells and hence doesn't meet its requirement that living cells only be "minimally manipulated." It categorized the stem cells stored and treated at Celltex as biologic drugs.

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Houston company ceases supplying stem cells

Stem cell therapy for muscle, sports injury alternative to surgery

By Erika Sauler Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines This type of stem cell therapy does not claim to be the fountain of youth, but an alternative treatment to arthritis, muscle pain and tendon tear.

Two Filipino doctors who trained in the United States said in a media forum on Sunday that autologous stem cell therapy could speed up the healing of musculoskeletal and sports-related injuries, which could be an optional remedy before undergoing surgery.

Dr. Jeimylo de Castro explained that the procedure would involve taking stem cells from the patients blood, fat tissue or bone marrow and injecting them to the injured area of the same person. This type of therapy is different from the controversial embryonic stem cells which are harvested from animals or fertilized eggs.

With stem cell therapy being a current fad for anti-aging, the Department of Health has warned the public that the benefits of stem cell therapy are still under evaluation. The DOH will soon issue guidelines for the use of stem cell therapy and the licensing of facilities offering this service.

De Castro and Dr. Franklin Domingo are both fellows of the Philippine Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine. They underwent training for stem cell therapy under Dr. Joseph Purita of the Institute of Regenerative and Molecular Orthopaedics, and Dr. Sherwin Kevy of Harvards Immune Disease Institute.

If you have arthritis and you take anti-inflammatory drugs, you will not feel the pain so you will move around and further damage the cartilage. Whereas stem cells will regenerate tissues and ease the pain, making the damaged cells become young again, De Castro said.

Domingo likened the stem cells to high school students who have no career yet and could be trained to be professionals in a field where they are needed. So if the stem cells are injected into an injured knee, they will develop into tissues that hasten the recovery of the area.

According to Domingo, stem cell therapy is not for everybody and is not a quick-fix solution because it uses the bodys natural ability to heal.

Patients who have cancer and infection are not allowed to undergo stem cell therapy, and so are those under the influence of alcohol or who have taken blood-thinning medicine like Coumadin at the time of extraction.

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Stem cell therapy for muscle, sports injury alternative to surgery

Stem cell meeting takes on national, international flavor

La Jolla's annual meeting about stem cells was once about stem cell science in San Diego, largely presented and attended by stem cell scientists in San Diego. But the Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa has grown to take on a national, or even international, flavor.

Along with the growing emphasis on commercializing regenerative medicine research, companies in the field are hunting for corporate partners. And to reach the right people, they're willing to travel far.

Of 35 companies and institutes presenting their technology Monday and Tuesday at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, just five are headquartered in San Diego County; 10 are headquartered elsewhere in California and 18 are from other states, along with one from the United Kingdom and one from the Netherlands.

Other companies have sent representatives to scout partnering opportunities.

The Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa provides a focus on regenerative medicine hard to get in other conferences, said Alexander Vos, chief executive of PharmaCell, based in Maastricht, Netherlands. The company provides contract human cell and tissue culturing services.

"It makes (discussions) much more effective," Vos said. "There are clearly other conferences as well, for instance the larger BIO (Biotechnology Industry Organization) meeting, but that covers all segments of the biotechnology industry, so there regenerative medicine is a small part. Here, it's a very focused meeting."

Closer to home, Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute in Los Angeles presented its technology along with the 34 other institutions, each given 15 minutes to make their "elevator pitch" to pique investor interest. Director Clive Svendsen said the institute is getting into "translational" research, which requires a business partner to get the treatment to patients. The meeting is well-suited to that goal, he said.

Svendsen said the meeting was made even more attractive because of the role of the state stem cell institute in organizing it. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which has been awarding grants for basic research, has recently starting giving out more money for translational medicine. Last week it gave a $10.1 million grant to help San Diego's ViaCyte bring a diabetes treatment to market.

In July, the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute was awarded a $17.8 million CIRM grant to develop treatments for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Svendsen said he's had good discussions at the meeting, including one with a company that has developed a method of tracking stem cells once they're transplanted into the body. That's desirable to make sure the cells actually survive after transplantation, he said.

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Stem cell meeting takes on national, international flavor

Perry brings his stem-cell cause to Houston

Gov. Rick Perry pushed Friday for Texas to become the center of adult stem-cell therapy, disregarding the federal government's increasing crackdown on clinics marketing the experimental medicine.

Perry told a crowd of stem-cell researchers, industry leaders and patients gathered in Houston that the young science "holds the promise of miracles" desperately needed by people across the world and suggested Texas' "wildcat spirit" and "conducive climate" can make it happen here.

"I'm not shy about asking people to relocate or start up their companies in Texas," said Perry, likening stem-cell treatment to previous innovations in space and heart care. "All of you outside the state of Texas - come on in. The water's fine. We've got an amazing environment here."

Perry, who famously got the unlicensed treatment for an ailing back in 2011, said the state has made sure that innovators won't be "hindered by exorbitant taxes, wrapped up by bureaucratic red tape or at the mercy of predatory attorneys, seeking to make steady money off extensive, drawn-out court cases."

Perry's remarks, made at the first of a planned annual Houston conference, came as the state appears headed toward a collision with the Food and Drug Administration, which has begun stepping up action against businesses that treat patients with their own stem cells. Last month, it issued a warning letter to Celltex Therapeutics Corp., the largest facilitator of the therapy in the Houston area, saying the process it puts the cells through alters them and makes them a biologic drug. The letter said the therapy was thus under FDA jurisdiction.

Perry's position

The letter was delivered just a few months after the Texas Medical Board began implementing a policy allowing doctors to use stem cells banked at facilities such as Celltex as long as it's part of research overseen by a panel that reviews clinical trials for patient safety. The TMB said it was allowing stem-cell use because it couldn't wait on the FDA.

As a result of the FDA letter, Celltex is in the process of closing down its 2012 trials.

Perry told the media after his keynote address that he disagrees with the FDA's decision on Celltex. He said that therapy involving one's own stem cells should no more be regulated by the FDA than bone marrow transplants or in-vitro fertilization.

Stem cells are cells in the body that multiply to replenish dying cells. The basis of what's known as regenerative medicine because of their ability to grow new tissue and repair diseased or injured body parts, they are touted by some as the future of medicine.

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Perry brings his stem-cell cause to Houston

Stem cell therapy a cure-all? Not so fast

MANILA, Philippines Its supposed to cure various illnesses such as cancer, spinal cord injury and Parkinsons disease. Is stem cell therapy the cure-all that it is touted to be?

Health Undersecretary Teodoro Herbosa said it is important to note that stem cell treatments are still at the experimental stage.

"The advisory is very clear. This is still an investigative form of therapy. Anecdotal reports are not enough evidence to say there is treatment, he said in an interview on ANC's Talkback with Tina Palma.

He said there are only two standard stem cell therapies considered effective and acceptable to the medical community.

"To date, I can only name two cases that are considered standard therapy. That is bone marrow transplantation--one for severe cancer, blood cancer and the other one is bone marrow transplantation after chemotherapy for any type of cancer, he said.

Herbosa said the Department of Health cannot confirm yet if stem cell treatment is indeed effective against certain diseases.

Dr. Tranquilino Elicao Jr., an oncologist who availed of the treatment in April in Frankfurt, Germany, said stem cell therapy cured his high blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol and uric acid.

He had 12 injections of cells, which came from lambs.

After a month, I had my blood tests. Everything went down to normal, Elicao said.

Elicao also said he is not taking medication anymore because he has regained his health.

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Stem cell therapy a cure-all? Not so fast